The mBlox expansion adds a patina of credibility to Atlanta’s reputation as a mobile technology hub. The region is home to several startups and established companies, including mobile device management firm AirWatch LLC and AT&T Inc.’s wireless unit.

MBlox is emblematic of corporate America shifting assets and jobs out of overregulated and overpriced markets such as California. Several West Coast blue chips, including Google, Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. have sales and data center operations in metro Atlanta.

MBlox will relocate work from Sunnyvale, London and Singapore to Sandy Springs’ 500 Northpark office tower, where it will house finance, IT networking, and customer service operations. The company was offered more than $600,000 in economic incentives.

“The depth of IT, telecommunications and mobile talent, along with a great cost of living were the deciding factors over other choices,” mBlox CEO Tom Cotney noted.

Atlanta’s cost of living is 3 percent lower than the national average, while Sunnyvale’s is 58 percent higher, said Cotney, who lives in Brookhaven and commutes to Sunnyvale and London.

Atlanta’s East Coast location helped it beat out Dallas for the expansion. North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park was also a contender.

“Atlanta only has a five-hour time difference from London, and three-hour time difference from the West Coast,” said Cotney, a Thomaston, Ga., native. “We are consolidating into the East Coast to take advantage of the time zone proximity.”

Atlanta’s deep expertise in the telecommunications industry was a plus. “A lot of what we need are people that have an understanding of the telecommunications environment,” Cotney said.

“The cost of real estate in Central London is nearly $85 a square foot,” Cotney said. “High-end office space in Midtown and Buckhead is $33 a square foot.”

While engineering and software work is likely to stay in Silicon Valley, cities such as Atlanta are magnets for operations work, Cotney said.

Metro Atlanta is more than just the cheapest option. “There’s lots of low-cost places without talent,” Cotney said. “Fortunately, Atlanta has both.”

MBlox is part of a wave of California companies shifting work to lower-cost, less-taxed markets.

In 2011, more than 250 California companies moved an operation out of state, or made major capital investments in plants elsewhere, that in the past would have been built in-state, said Joseph Vranich, principal of Spectrum Location Solutions, in Irvine, Calif. That’s up from 202 companies in 2010, according to Vranich’s data, which is based on public domain information, such as news stories and closure notices to the state. The top destinations for California companies are the Southwest and Southeast, said Vranich, who is working on an updated report.

“The departures from California continue,” he said. “It’s the general cost of doing business, aggravated by new tax increases and new regulations.”

For Alan Dabbiere, the cross-continent relo wasn’t about cost, but scale. Dabbiere moved global supply-chain services provider Manhattan Associates Inc. from Manhattan Beach, Calif., to Atlanta in 1995. The company, which at the time had 30 employees, grew to 800 in three years.

Jeffrey Sprecher, founder of IntercontinentalExchange Inc. (which just bought the New York Stock Exchange), has famously said he kept the company in Atlanta only because the employees of ICE’s Atlanta predecessor company universally said they would quit before they moved to Los Angeles.

California is in the corporate recruitment crosshairs of Georgia economic developers. In the past year, the Metro Atlanta Chamber and its economic development partners have helped four California-based technology companies expand into metro Atlanta, creating a combined 275 jobs.

Mobile technology, Internet security and software development are key economic development sectors, said Gregg Simon, a director at the Metro Atlanta Chamber. “California has many companies in those technology clusters,” Simon said. “We fish where the fish are.”

The migration of California companies to the Peach State is not limited to the tech sector, but includes manufacturers and health-care firms. Since December 2011, Georgia has attracted 12 expansion projects from California companies, accounting for nearly 1,500 jobs and $477 million in investment, according to the Georgia Department of Economic Development.

MBlox subscription services allow financial institutions to send credit card payment reminders, or do two-factor authentication via mobile phones. It also allows pharmacies to remind customers that prescriptions are available for pick up.

“We focus on the enterprise space,” Cotney said. “We are doing with the mobile phone what businesses have done via call centers or brick-and-mortar branches.”

When it comes to customer engagement, text messaging is more effective than email or direct mail.

“Eighty-nine percent of text messages get opened within six minutes, Cotney said. “Only 10 percent of emails are opened within four hours.”

MBlox expects nearly $140 million in revenue this year, up 13 percent from last year. That growth is fueled by the adoption of mobile devices by consumers, which requires businesses to have a mobile strategy for marketing and customer support.

To grow its top line, mBlox has added functionality beyond text message alert. MBlox allows marketers to deliver coupons and promotions to mobile phones, based on geographic proximity. Using mobile phone GPS data, retailers can push messages via mobile apps, or carrier networks once a consumer enters a store, or comes within a few miles of it. For instance, Kroger can offer a mobile coupon to customers (who have opted to receive the messages) as they drive by a store.

MBlox’s revenue model is similar to that of a wireless carrier. Customers receive a bundle of messages for an annual subscription, and pay for additional messages and functionality.

In addition to Fortune 500 companies, the tech firm is seeing demand from small businesses, such as doctor’s offices and dry cleaners.

“They are going to interact with consumers the way that big businesses do,” Cotney said. “It’s kind of like how small businesses have to have websites — they don’t get a break because they are small.”

MBlox also hopes to achieve growth through geographic expansion. The tech company is expanding into Asia and Africa — regions that have booming populations, and rapid adoption of mobile phones. Lack of landline telephone infrastructure in the developing world means those populations have leapfrogged directly to mobile phones. Also, limited broadband infrastructure in those regions means a lot of mobile communication is done via text messaging.